anyone bought refurbished laptop before? yikes y/y?

[Howie Roary]

so I increased my budget some,
http://www.newegg.ca/Product/Product...82E16834231070 $714 with $50 off

ASUS G53 Series G53SX-SX277V Notebook, Bilingual Intel Core i7 2670QM(2.20GHz) 15.6" 16GB Memory DDR3 1333 500GB HDD DVD Super Multi NVIDIA GeForce GTX 560M

good deal?

it only has a 3 month warranty, should I be worried about buying refurbished? lack of SSD a dealbreaker?

[Howie Roary]

think an ASUS can be opened up and upgraded? like switch out the HDD for SSD down the road?

what kind of parts generally cack out first on problem laptops? keyboard? screen?

[Krandor]

A friend of mine owns that model, and his keys could be prone to breaking off, but he didn't exactly take good care of his laptop.

Assuming the refurbish was done by Asus, you're probably safe buying it, especially with a warranty since anything missed in a refurb should be noticed pretty quickly.

I want to say that model has two drive bays if you wanted to add a ssd later, but not 100% on that.

[Blarg]

How do laptop hard drives work considering how often they get bumped around. I had an external drive that stopped working because it was tipped a bit to the side while spinning but you can rotate laptops at all angles just fine.

[Howie Roary]

thanks Krandor, a 2nd bay may not be necessary as I'd be fine replacing it altogether if possible

[Howie Roary]

yeah I'm trying to find an extended warranty option, but I don't see a SquareTrade option anywhere--oops, nevermind they only offer it on New, not refurb

I'll definitely do the stress test(s), and I'm presently on the phone with VISA to see if the extended electronics warranty feature on my card covers laptops, refurbished ones at that

[Howie Roary]

also how do I stress test? run D3 on ultra? apparently she can run it at 41 FPS on ultra, nb

[Krandor]

If you want to go full on stress test route, get the programs Fur mark (GPU) and prime95 (CPU).

I wouldn't run both at the same time on a laptop since that's just asking for it to overheat, but those running for 20-30 minutes should give you an idea of max temps and let you know ifyour hardware is good.

[Howie Roary]

thanks guys

[Howie Roary]

one time offer, expired 10 years ago

[Howie Roary]

oh, my VISA doubles my warranties, so this 3 month is now a 6 month, not bad

[Howie Roary]

I confirmed, and she said yes, but reps have been wrong before

I'll find out once the order has been confirmed and I contact the warranty department people at VISA to let them know I bought something with a warranty

[Howie Roary]

and yeah, 6 months on a refurb, when you get 1 year on a new product, not too shabby